It’s time once again for our Friday comic book cosplay feature, spotlighting the best superhero (and villain) related costuming from the cosplay community.  We’re casting the spotlight onto those cosplayers who we think deserve special recognition for coming up with the best costumes, whatever the budget, and the photographers who capture them for posterity.

Gamma Squad is committed to giving a voice to the cosplay community that thrives in groups like our friends at TheSuperheroCostumingForum.com. Each week we spotlight our favorite costumes and each month we host a cosplay contest. We’ll be picking a theme for each month and inviting cosplayers, costumers and photographers to submit related pictures of their work to our Flickr group to be considered. We’ll then pick our top choices and post them on Gamma Squad for the adoration of all.

The theme for the upcoming month is:

• Super Villains and Diabolical Foes
  

For now, enjoy this week’s selection!

Read the rest of this entry »

So, back in the 80s and 90s when Saturday morning cartoons still existed, it seemed like around half of them were based on video games. Most of these game-based cartoons sucked — like really sucked. Compared to most of them Street Sharks and The Cow Boys of Moo Mesa looked like The Wire and The Sopranos respectively.

The shows themselves might not have been great, but a lot of them made up for that (sort of) with some truly uh, memorable intros/theme songs. Some were memorable due to being terrible/completely baffling, some because they legitimately kicked ass. So, without further ado, here 14 of the most ridiculous/ridiculously awesome video game cartoon intros…

Read the rest of this entry »

In terms of mental illness, we might have just had a major, major breakthrough.

Schizophrenia is a disturbing disease for a pretty simple reason: we don’t know why it happens, we don’t know if it’s genetic, and we don’t know when it will kick in if it does happen. And it’s tragic to watch: schizophrenia is a horrible, disabling mental illness.

Schizophrenics have many symptoms, but the common denominator is this: trouble sleeping. Doctors have dismissed this for years, until recently, when they decided to trigger schizophrenia-type symptoms in mice and check to see what their sleeping patterns were like.

In a word: shot.

It boils down to body clocks. The gene disrupted, SNAP25, alters proteins that communicate information from your body’s central clock to the other various biological clocks around your body. It’s a lot like jet lag: if these clocks get out of sync, it can mess with you in all sorts of ways, and not just mentally: shift workers going on third shift have a higher likelihood of type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

Schizophrenics, by the way, have almost exactly the same higher rates.

That said, there’s still the problem of cause: are the clocks going out of whack causing schizophrenia, or is a different cause of schizophrenia knocking the clocks out of whack? It still opens the door to new treatments, and might just help end a serious mental illness.

And this is why we love science, ladies and gentlemen.

image via www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca on Flickr

Hey folks, do you like Resident Evil? I hope so, because I’ve got a whole lotta Resident Evil stuff for you. First up — Capcom released the first official trailer for Resident Evil 6 last night.

A lot of stuff happens in the trailer, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t really understand what was going on for much of it, but the major points are these — the two main RE protagonists Leon Kennedy and Chris Redfield are finally in a major RE game together, it looks like zombies are actually back for reals this time, and the thing’s coming out in late 2012.

Check out the trailer for yourself after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

By the time you read this, our stalwart film critic will have been sitting in the theater for an hour, watching “Underworld: Awakening”. Why? Because we pay him, that’s why! The mantle of Creative Director comes with responsibilities, sitting through dying awful film franchises chief among them.

So, to compensate for his lack of timely reviews, he will instead be live tweeting at his personal Twitter account, Theta1138, and responding to @ replies (don’t worry, he’ll be sitting in the back, wedged in the far corner, so his screen radiation doesn’t bother anyone). And then he’ll update this post with his emotional reaction to what will no doubt be one of the more profound achievements of cinema in the 21st century.

In other words, watch this space. And harass him on Twitter. Make him earn his gruel!

UPDATE: Now with actual review thoughts!
Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, I know, I used “whilst” in the post title, there. Probably used it incorrectly too, but man does it look fancy.

Anyway, a couple of months ago, back in November, PC Gamer featured a trailer from the Max Payne 3:Design and Technology series, in which a narrator basically broke down the “new” mechanics of the upcoming title, while (whilst?!) simultaneously giving us all raging gaming boners. Well, this week they’re back with a second design video (and hopefully the boners), this one concentrating specifically on the weapons and targeting system for Mr. Payne’s third wild ride. Plenty of new footage and, oh yes, the narrator is back as well.

Basically, here’s what I learned from the video below: Max Payne can wiggle around with his machine guns out and, thanks to thousands of animations, it all looks really fluid. They even factor in stuff like the weight and recoil of the guns you’re carrying and how that affects Max’s balance when he’s moving -he looks just like a real life bald slob!

Video below the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »